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Post by husker on Jul 6, 2008 21:08:31 GMT -5
So I ask the guy who has a D201A listed as "refurbished" who did the owrk, what was done etc and does this radio have the black tuner ( looks like it) and has he had any issues with the tuner.
All he will tell me is he wants 799.00 for the radio......thought so....not a single thing about the "reburb"...
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Post by mark4 on Jul 6, 2008 22:09:33 GMT -5
Buyer beware! And yes it has the BAD channel selector! He has answered all your questions by not answering so to speak. In other words he can't be trusted! Keep your money in your pocket!
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Post by husker on Jul 6, 2008 23:20:59 GMT -5
Thanks, nope..not remotely interested.. but I do have a question. If I did have a very good radiooverall except for the channel selector, what could I do?? If I had a "good" one from another radio could I transplant it..or do I need to get a new circuit brd and start over?? thanks
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Post by 2600 on Jul 7, 2008 13:23:51 GMT -5
Here's the deal:
The crystal selector with the black body was a design failure. Not Tram's failure, but the fault of A-MP, the vendor of the switch.
They would routinely fail in a month or two when the radios were being sold new. Tram was so overwhelmed by warranty returns that they would send me a new syn board, on the promise I would ship them the dud. I was never a warranty station for any brand, but the labor I charged to swap the syn board was not a lot more than the cost to ship the radio to New Hampshire and back. And Tram was happy to have one less radio bouncing back to them with a bum selector.
The later design for this selector (the gray one) was NOT physically compatible. It's larger, and the arrangement of the pin connections did NOT match the original black selector.
As a result, the installation requires that you pull up about eighteen foil traces from the holes where the black selector was installed. A few new holes get drilled to match the new one. Now, you lap-solder eighteen skinny bare wires to the old foil traces, and wrap the other end around each pin on the new gray selector. Clear teflon sleeve is slid over these wires to prevent them from shorting one to another. They are packed so closely that you can't use normal plastic tubing. The heat from soldering adacent wires would melt that stuff into a puddle. The teflon sleeve is not disturbed by soldering heat.
Once all this is done, it's not uncommon to find a handful of crystals that are not quite on frequency any more. But until the new switch is in place, there is no way to tell this.
A 40-channel Tram D201A that is "mint" or "clean and shiny as the day it was made" offers a clue. Usually means that the radio broke down before any real mileage could be put on it. Got boxed back up and put on a shelf. By the time the owner called the factory about warranty service, they got told "three months" for the repair, and decided to wait for the backlog to shrink.
But by the time the owner waited, Tram was gone, along with any hope of a "free" warranty repair.
Thirty years later, it comes out of the closet, still "mint".
Mint, with a bum crystal selector.
You may never see a radio with that gray selector installed at the factory. Every one of them I have seen was installed after the radio was in the hands of its first owner.
73
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Post by husker on Jul 7, 2008 15:34:42 GMT -5
I see, so one of the Trams I have has the black channel selector, but it works pretty good and has for the8 yrs or so I have had it...could it be a muntant Or am I just sitting on a time bomb waiting for it to blow??
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Post by 2600 on Jul 9, 2008 1:53:49 GMT -5
Hey, if yours holds up under regular use, who am I to criticize?
I guess maybe yours was made on a Wednesday afternoon, maybe?
What makes them fail is wear and tear, mostly. If you don't spin it very often, it will last longer. More than once I've recomended using the slider, to minimize the number of times the crystal knob gets spun.
The more times it gets turned, the sooner it breaks down, in my experience.
73
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Post by husker on Jul 9, 2008 9:34:28 GMT -5
Hey, if yours holds up under regular use, who am I to criticize? I guess maybe yours was made on a Wednesday afternoon, maybe? What makes them fail is wear and tear, mostly. If you don't spin it very often, it will last longer. More than once I've recomended using the slider, to minimize the number of times the crystal knob gets spun. The more times it gets turned, the sooner it breaks down, in my experience. 73 makes sense, also I understand better the "like new" statement and why Ebay folks use that with some of these old Trams. I can't thank you enough for the insight! I do have a brd with a silver tuner on it, how hard is it to replace the brd with the tuner chrystals and all.....
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Post by mark4 on Jul 9, 2008 17:38:15 GMT -5
Depends on your skill and experience. But it ain't no picnic!
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